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(Slightly belated) Happy Christmas 2009… but on time for Happy New Year 2010!

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Category : Travel & Adventure

After taking 15hours to move about 4 miles along the M20 in Dover, finally made it to Lauterbrunnen where I’ve been cooking for 50 people all week (along with John P, who is in charge!). Christmas Eve was my day for skiing – didn’t quite work, so just enjoyed the train ride/apple fritters in Brandegg on Christmas Day, before we came back and cooked up a storm…


Heading back into the UK 27/28 December, so here’s praying you had a great Christmas, and are looking forward to 2010 - who knows what it will hold. For those of you who have lost track of what I’m up to, and are interested, I am doing the following (I was going to do this on my blog, but the database seems to have a problem, so I can’t get in…), mostly at the University of Winchester:

  1. 1 day per week promoting e-learning (permanent, but not enough to live on)
  2. 2 day per week Modern History Lectureship (til June 2010)
  3. Hourly (but around 2 day per week) teaching Media Studies (til June 2010)
  4. Completing my own studies: PGCLTHE (trying to finish by Febraruy 2010…)
  5. Setting up the socialmedia strategy for Super Fun Days Out (love some blog entries if you have time!), alongside ownsocial media consultancy.
  6. Other bits & bobs…Getting myself in the New York Times was probably a bit of a highlight for last year!

The Kerslake Company

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Category : Coaching, Inspirational

The Kerslake Company

Dr Deborah Kerslake is the owner of the Coaching College where I did my Life Coaching qualification, then known as Serenergise. I went to see Debs for a day, gave her some advice on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc. and advised that her site needed a more professional look/more functionality, and put her in touch with Brown Bear Art… and here’s the result. Almost as proud as if it was my company/I had done it, now I just need to persuade Debs that using Twitter/Facebook are fun – although Camilla has so much experience now, she doesn’t need my help any more!

Bangkok Brasserie, Winchester

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Category : Winchester

bangkok-brasserie-thai-foodNom, nom – go here! Been for the first time tonight (it’s where an Italian restaurant used to be) with a friend. We had a mixed platter for starters (which was all lovely – I’m not usually a fan of spring rolls, but mine was delicious, although we were both saying the Prawn Toasts were the winner!). I had coconut rice and cashew chicken for my main, which was lovely, especially the rice – and was then too full for dessert. Karen had Sticky Rice and sweet and sour white fish. The sticky rice was not good, but they apologised and immediately took it off the bill (can’t ask for more than that!), but the other, and the Jasmine tea afterwards was apparently exquisite!

Advertising Tricks

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Category : Academic

An interesting view from someone “on the inside”, with that Psychological perspective – familiar from teaching Advertising!

Key tricks: Reciprocity, Scarcity, Authority, Commitment, Liking and Consensus.

Thanks to @ChairmanCorti to drawing my attention to this video: “Make up artist for food”, specifically burgers in this case!

And then I found this one, the advertised image, and the reality… looks a bit like a tableful of food from one of Dr Gillian McKeith’s prorgrammes!

Camilla Kerslake: Thank You!

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Category : Review

Signed Album from Camilla Kerslake

Just watched Camilla on BBC Breakfast yesterday. Has been fascinating watching Camilla rising in the public eye, so keep blogging about her, and love seeing how proud her mum is (and so proud of seeing the new site for Debs come together, hopefully before Christmas!). That “leading supermarket” that Gary referred to is Waitrose – lovely! I’d already downloaded the album from iTunes, so had been enjoying it, but now I can listen in the car too (no MP3 player!) – so thanks Camilla for my signed copy of your album! Hope you got a good sleep after your late night and early start – I wish I’d seen you in concert with Il Divo, but I knew I was never going to fit it in…

Panto: The Three Musketeers

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Category : Event

Tonight, for a little bit of time out from the everyday attachment to my computer, I went to NWCC‘s annual pantomime, written, directed and front-performed by David Simpkin (currently studying at the University of Winchester for an MPhil/PhD entitled “‘An analysis of the ways in which amateur pantomime in performance relates to the community for which it is performed, with particular emphasis on the ways in which the creative and rehearsal process affect the intended outcome’”, whilst also managing the University bookshop). First night tonight, always (un)officially billed as “the final rehearsal”, so the bargain price of £1! Lots of in-jokes, community jokes, running jokes, sing-songs, things going a bit wrong, and everyone generally having an AWESOME and hilarious time… much laughter in the room (not always at the right time according to Neil!)…

The Three Musketeers (naturally)

So, here we are, introduced to “The Three Musketeers: All for One and One for All”

David the Dame

Need a close-up shot of David!

Full House!

Packed house: interval

2 Pastors and an Upstanding Academic (well, bending over!)

“Bee” tries to “sneak out” with the “nefarious por-poises”…

Politically Correct Christmas

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Category : Christian

Councils are turning into politically correct Scrooges… so the celebration of Halloween, etc. is to be encouraged, as are celebrations of other religions (e.g. Diwali, Eid, etc.), but not Christmas. As a Christian I don’t mind that other religions continue their traditions, and find it offensive that they are required to stop events that are part of their tradition. Christmas is nothing without Christ, so let’s just scrap it all together (but then we’d have to find another reason to have a couple of weeks off!)

Gingerbread Haka

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Category : Just for Fun

Aside from the voices were a little deeper when I watched “the real thing” seems pretty accurate (thanks to @James McKenna for pointing this one out!).

David Attenborough: Life

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Category : Review

Last night, at my friends, I actually watched some TV, and this “Creatures from the Deep” from David Attenborough’s Life series was absolutely fascinating (below, a ray eating a soft-shelled crab) – you can see this particular episode on BBC iPlayer for the next 19 days, or purchase the series from Amazon!

rayeatingcrab“‘Life’ will chronicle the extraordinary patterns of animal behaviour and the ends to which animals and plants go in order to survive.

For the first time on television, viewers will be able to see dolphins creating circles of mud to entrap fish, hunting cheetahs collaborating to bring down prey twice their size, killer whales who have learnt to stalk seals and Komodo dragons trailing buffalo.

The series, which took four years to make, will also include epic spectacles such as millions of fruit bats darkening the Zambian sky, dozens of polar bears feasting on a whale and a billion butterflies cloaking a forest in Mexico.

Produced by the BBC Natural History Unit using state of the art filming technology, the show includes strange creatures such as star-nosed moles and stalk-eyed flies “growing” their eyes.

Martha Holmes, the series producer, told The Daily Telegraph: “We have chosen 130 stories from the animal world and the series is incredibly dramatic, with stories that people will identify with.

“Each tale is told from the perspective of the animal. We aren’t just doing broadbrush nature, we are telling individual stories and new behaviour. This is cutting edge evolution. You think you know what cheetahs do – watch this.”

See Telegraph Article.

Advent Calendar

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Category : Christian